2018-07-01T17:31:59+02:00http://scottmuc.com/Octopress2018-01-02T01:13:42+01:00http://scottmuc.com/my-resolutions-for-2018Reflections on 2017

Perform 1 pull up – This didn’t go so well. I’m now the heaviest that I’ve ever been (95kg). My psoriasis (scalp) has become really annoying and gets worse when I exercise. So 2017 wasn’t a good year for my health. It’s very clear that I don’t handle disruption of my routine very well. Below is a graph of my workouts:

Only 1 or 2 of those gaps was related to illness; most of them were due to travel (work and play). The last few months was me being preoccupied with my move to Berlin (yet another excuse).

journaling – I also took a look at if I adhered to my 2016 goal to maintain a journal. The following graph shows that I started the year off strong and then it faded away for a bit.

I’ve been looking back in my journal periodically now and finding it a great source of insight into what my previous self was thinking. I’m happy I’ve started picking it up last month.

Goal for 2018:

Inspired by Cate Huston, I’m going to liberate myself from making a goal for this year. I’ve just moved back to Berlin and will spend this year settling in and exploring.

This doesn’t mean I’m not going to doing anything about my personal health, I just am not deciding what it is at this current moment.

Summary

2018 is going to be a year of settling down and some reflection. I’m happy to have found a home where I’m excited by the prospect of being there for many years. I’m just going to let that feeling spawn iniatives as the year goes on.

This post took 2 pomodoro to complete

]]>2017-12-09T16:25:18+01:00http://scottmuc.com/moving-back-to-berlin

Remember that post about moving to Dublin from almost a couple years ago? Consider this a tiny git revert --no-commit of that, modify it slightly to keep my location as Berlin but Pivotal as my employer.

A Pivotal Moment (that has lasted 2 years)

The whole process started with a strong desire to move back to Berlin (I’ll go into why later). I was willing to look for a different job but I really really didn’t want to. Pivotal has been fantastic and I’ve enjoyed it there. Since I joined I’ve worked on 3 different teams over 2 years:

Ops Manager – A web platform for managing all the products offered on the Pivotal Network (think of this as an AppStore for Ops Manager)

Release Engineering – A team responsible for packaging all the components of Cloud Foundry in a package that can install in Ops Manager. Now they support even more products and the automation to sustain it all is really impressive!

RabbitMQ for PCF – This is where I spent the bulk of my time (18 months). For part of the time I played software developer and for the majority of the time I played product manager. Both roles had a myriad of activities that cover the many facets of software delivery so I enjoyed this time very much.

In all of these projects I got to work with great people who challenged me and allowed me to challenge them as well. The products themselves are also quite interesting and are gaining a lot of traction in the market. Cloud Foundry is something I would have enjoyed using if my primary activity was writing application code.

So, when I mentioned my desire to move to my manager, Jamie Monseratte, he responded with support and positivity. I was able to explore the different things I could do in Berlin and eventually landed on a role called Platform Reliability Engineer (we’re hiring). It feels like it’ll be a fun mix of enablement, hands on operations, and customer engagement. I’ve learned that I love running software more than the building software so this appears to be a great fit for me.

I’ve spent a few days in the office and met everyone at the Christmas party (photo to be added soon). I already feel welcome!

Dublin

Living in Dublin was a great experience. I’ve learned all about irish whiskey which is now my favourite spirit. I’ve made some friends and have visited more pubs than I can possible count. I’m going to miss all the concert venues which became my home away from home.

What’s The Deal With Berlin?

It’s hard to explain why exactly I wanted to be back in Berlin. It’s the first time I’ve ever moved back to a city. The best way I can describe how I felt is that Berlin has the most gravity. Every location has a bit of gravity: Vancouver, San Francisco, Bangalore; But Berlin had sufficient gravity to pull me out of Dublin. You know a place is right when people describe the things they dislike about a city and you find those are the reasons why you like it.

In my head this is the last move I’m going to be doing voluntarily. I wish to settle down in Berlin and make it the first place I’ve lived in for longer than 2 years since I lived in Vancouver (which implies I haven’t lived in the same city for longer than 18 months in the last 8 years).

In my first week in Berlin I’ve found my new home. It’s an interesting flat in Wilmersdorf. It’s large, has lots of character, and is well connected to all of Berlin. I look forward to having you over :–)

This post took 4 pomodoros to complete

]]>2017-03-06T22:40:48+01:00http://scottmuc.com/valuable-links-tlsThis is embarassing to admit but I have to re-learn Transport Layer Security (TLS) on a continuous basis. This post
is my cheatsheet to remembering all the itty bitty details, which I’ll forgot shortly after I do whatever TLS related
task I have on my plate.

What’s TLS you ask? Take 9 minutes to listen to this fantastic episode on Public key cryptography
which will prime (hah!) you up for the rest of the post.

What’s The Difference Between SSL And TLS?

The fact that I still think SSL over TLS is likely a result of my first exposure to dealing with
these sorts of things was in a multi-tenant Windows web hosting environment. I seriously can’t believe I was able to do
the things I did back then without having one iota of understanding what was going on.

I only learned that the difference between SSL and TLS is so simple just a couple years ago. It boils down to this:

Are you expecting a secure connection because the port you’re connecting to is by definition intended to be a secure
port? Then we’re talking about SSL.

Do you start connecting and switch to a secure mode based on the feedback coming back over the “wire”? Then we’re
talking about TLS.

What Are Certificates?

When it comes to certifcates, I’ve yet to find a resource that does a good high level explanation. For the time being
I’ve found SSL/TLS Certificates Beginners’ Tutorial the best resource because it does explain the openssl
command in a bit of detail and links to even more resources. Having a basic grasp of Certificate Authorities,
and the chain of trust (not a 90’s Christian metal band) is another piece
of the puzzle to understand well because it’s where things can often go wrong and result in cryptic errors
(like the browser warnings that we all ignore).

My simplified understanding is that a certificate certifies hat the one (machine) with the certificate is the entity
that the certificate says it’s certifying. I believe this is true for server and client certificates, but I am not 100% sure.

What Goes On When You Use HTTPS?

Nearly everytime I need to setup HTTPS I find that I need to reread the
First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection article. It’s a long read but if you spend a day following
the links and focusing on understanding that article, you’ll tackle any HTTPS related task with ease. You’ll just
forget it all after a few days.

Hostname Verification

How Do Things Go Wrong?

The following video by Moxie Marlinspike is told at a nice slow pace on how certificates can break down.
It’s a good reminder to be humble when dealing with these complex security tools. I tend to rewatch this video after
reading the above articles. If I can follow the video, then I’ve chunked enough knowledge to move on.

Summary

Hope these help. It’s inspired by all the other folks that also couldn’t tell me the difference between SSL and TLS.
It’s easy to feel ashamed about not knowing these technologies, security is a very hard domain. I’ve kept my
explanations to a minimum because I don’t feel confident I can provide correct information, nor am I able to explain it
simply. When in doubt, I’ll look to the resources here. Hopefully this will give you a good starting ground if you’ve
been asked to do anything related to SSL/TLS and certificates.

Update I was contacted by Matt Banner who asked me to update this article with some content from his
website. I took a look at it and it’s a really good guide for updating from http to https (pop quiz, is
this SSL or TLS?) plus it has a really good infographic.

Disclaimer – I was not paid or propositioned to write this post and/or link to the Mitchell & Son web store. I just
enjoyed their course a lot. At the end of the course I was given a 10€ discount on any Green/Yellow spot whiskies. I
would also recommend the Celtic Whiskey Shop too.

Over the last month I had the wonderful opportunity of learning all about Irish whiskey. It was held in the
Mitchell and Son store in The CHQ Building (where I work) so how could I not participate?
If you see them offering it again I highly recommend it! Not only did I learn a lot about Irish whiskey, I learned
a lot about whiskey in general.

First, a bit of history. It’s quite possible that you are screaming at your screen shouting that I am spelling
whiskey incorrectly. Chill out. The word originates from the old Irish word uisce (meaning water). When
Scotch whisky became popular the proud Irish introduced ‘e’ into the anglicised version of uisce, hence whiskey.
The USA often uses this spelling too which may be because of the large amounts of Irish emigration during that time.
What’s very clear is that people do spend way too much time arguing about what is the “right” way. The liquid doesn’t
care what you call it.

Three of the evenings had brand ambassadors to do a bit of a sales pitch. At least that’s what I thought they were going
to do. What I ended up hearing from them was passion about whiskey and its Irish origins. They enjoyed their competitors
products and they were happy to be a part of the booming Irish whiskey resurgence. There was a feeling of
disappointment about the world view of Irish whiskey. Scotch is perceived as the ultimate whiskey and that Irish whiskey
is only used for shots (and usually only Jameson).

Thankfully, I know better now. The course made me appreciate Irish whiskey, but it made me appreciate the Irish people
as well. The course did not have any air of snobbery about it. The presenters gave tips and hints about how they like to
enjoy their whiskey but didn’t seem to be too bothered too much if people had other ways of enjoying it. In the end they
just wanted people to know that Irish whiskey isn’t just shots of Jameson and a brutal hangover.

For traditional Irish single pot still whiskey the mash bill is half malted barley and half unmalted barley. The unmalted
barley is there because of tax laws the existed in 1795. This tickles the economist in me because I love seeing how
financial incentives create innovation (the history of British ales and Belgium beer have similar economic origins). With
the tax incentives gone this style of whiskey is still made because the flavour profile became rather popular.

The distilling begins with a fermenting mash heated to a temperature where the alcohol evaporates. The first
distillation isn’t pure enough so this gets distilled again. When you read a label that says “triple distilled”, it’s
because it was distilled in pot stills and you need that third distillation to really extract the cleanest
distilate. Some whiskeys are known and enjoyed for being double distilled, but this usually isn’t by design. It’s
most likely because of budget since the extra still does cost quite a bit (again with the financial incentives).

The evening started with a collection of whiskies in a circle. In the period of 2 hours we heard the wise words
of Mark McLaughlin. You can instantly tell the guy is mad about whiskey. He does an excellent job of getting you just
as excited to experience the whiskey as he is.

To the right you can see the whiskeys I tried.

Green Spot Château Léoville Barton – A very unique nose (how it smells) on this one. My notes
say hopscotch but after further tastings I would add cookie dough or frosting. On the palate (how it tastes) is a bit
like buttered toast but transforms into a cinnamon toast. There’s some nuts and spice to it as well. The finish
(aftertaste) is fruity, warm, and medium length.

Red Breat Lustau – Like the above it had a buttery nose to it. On the palate it was much meatier
and savory. There’s dried fruit and a bit of spice. This is one of the remaining bottles I feel I need to add to the
collection.

The representitive for this week was from Irish Distillers and boy could he talk… and talk… and talk.

Week 2 – Single Malt Whiskey

The theme for this week is single malt whiskey. The term “single malt” has become synonymous with high quality. You may
even hear people say that they like a nice “single malt” and not mention the word whiskey. That’s how popular and recognized
the term has become.

Some individuals think this is the only real style of whiskey and frown upon anything that’s blended. They forget that
the word “single” implies that the liquid is just coming from the same distillery. The “malt” part means that only malted
barley is in the mash bill (you’ll recall single pot still also had unmalted barley). Blending 100% malt whiskey of
different ages is very common. Again it’s a matter of economics as well as taste. Because the business has fairly long
feedback loops their finance departments often face liquidity (zing) issues. So when you get a bottle and it says 8
years on the label, that’s just the age of the youngest liquid in the bottle. Master blenders will use their stock to
combine different casks of several ages and come up with flavours that can be great and ready for the shelf.

The brand ambassador of the evening was from Bushmills which is the only old time distillery still in operation on the
island of Ireland (circa 1784). I really need to get myself up to Belfast for a visit and then a distillery tour up in
Bushmills at some point.

To the right you can see the whiskeys I tried.

Bushmills Port Cask – Something about this one tasted familiar. I believe I had a port cask Lagavulin that was like a
warm cozy blanket. This one was like that.

Teeling Revival Volume II – My notes show a dominate apple characteristic. The nose was like
freshly cut green apple. The palate was like experiencing a 3 course meal! First was a light salad with fresh cut
apples, then something savoury like a vegetable stew, then finishes up with apple pie. I don’t know if the first
whiskies had an affect on me, but I need to get a bottle of this to see if I can replicate that experience.

Tullamore Dew 18yr – Again I got lots of apple, but that could have been the residue from the previous whiskey. The
palate was all over the place with juniper, mint, raisin, and honey. I even got a feeling of masala chai out of it.
This was very nice whiskey.

You may have noticed an absence of links in a couple of the above whiskies. It turns out that airport duty free stores
are a huge market and many brands create airport only whiskies. The Bushmills representive said that 50% of their
product turnover is in airports! Such a shame because these two were really really good.

Week 3 – All Grain and Independent Bottlers

The first couple whiskeys of the evening was a brief tour of Single Grain whiskey. The best I can understand it is that
the distillate is made of corn and distilled by column stills. This makes them a bit cheaper to produce and have their
own flavour profiles. They are much lighter on the palate and easy to drink. While I thought they were quite drinkable,
they didn’t have the bigger flavour that I prefer.

Independent bottlers are a collection of brands that aren’t backed by the big players in the market. What I found very
interesting is that the brand of the whiskey doesn’t imply that they distilled the liquid. Since Ireland only has a handful
of running distilleries the liquid would only come from them (usually Bushmills but others are upping their production).
The independents can then choose their casks and blending strategies to make something unique and distinctly theirs. I’m
glad they did because they produced a couple of my favourites!

To the right you can see the whiskeys I tried.

Writer’s Tears Red Head – This is probably the best value out of all the whiskies that I rated
highly. The finish just keeps going. The middle provides this mouth feel that is a joy for the tongue.

Dunvilles PX Cask Finish – The nose is full of pineapple and tropical fruit. There’s a bit of
chocolate there too. When you taste it you get something like a spicy valentines day heart candy, which settles down
into a nutty soft middle. The finish is smooth and long with hints of black berries and pine. Every sip of this is a
new story and trying to explain the flavours is so much fun. This is by far my favourite whiskey of the entire
course.

Connemara 22 yrs – Another really complex whiskey with the flavour going all over the map. It was
very peaty, but behind the smokiness was many other flavours hiding in the woodwork (zing!). At the price
point it’ll be something I pick up for a special occasion. Nah, I’ll probably get a bottle soon enough.

The first two were so good that I bought both of them the next day.

Week 4 – Blended Whiskey

In the single malt section I described a bit of what blending entails. It’s pretty simple to describe, but the execution
of the tasty blend is where the skills comes in. Blends are also quite fun to drink because it provides a puzzle for the
drinker to disect and figure out the blend composition is made up of. I felt that I was a bit snobby regarding blended
whiskies but I’m ready to give blends much more time than before. It’s funny how fickle our opinions can be when it
comes to taste. If it doesn’t taste like what you’re used to it seems natural to dislike it. Shake out those
preconceived biases and enjoy the drink on its own. Easier said than done.

The final week was extra special because the tastings were done blind. I loved this because it makes biased opinions
a lot harder. I would like to taste more whiskies this way. Something to keep in mind is that every single whiskey is very
good. None would be something I wouldn’t be able to finish a bottle of. My scores just help me decide which of these
fine whiskies I should spend my money on.

To the right you can see the whiskeys I tried.

Tullamore Dew 12yr – This one was a lot of fun to drink. It’s a triple style blend (single
pot-still, malt, and grain). I don’t know if it’s the blending but I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the nose
compared to the palate. It plays with the tongue in a prickly way too. At less than 50€ it’s a pretty decent value
too.

Irishman Cask Strength – A bit pricey but it provides so many ways to enjoy it. Every sip was
different. Adding a few drops of water took the edge off and created a brand new whiskey. Reading my notes seems to
reflect that because they didn’t even make any sense! They were all over the place.

The representitive for this week was from Tullamore Dew. I enjoyed his easy going nature and his more
laissez faire attitude about how to drink whiskey. Seemed like someone that would be fun to go out for drinks with.

Summary

The course was well worth the 160€. Now I’m happily building up a small collection of my favourites. Because of this
course I feel that I am getting much better value for the money spent because I am purchasing the whiskeys that best
fit what I enjoy. I wouldn’t complain about any of the whiskies I tried, but when it comes to spending your hard earned
cash, it’s nice to know a bit about what you’re getting. Now I just need to add the Red Breast Lustau,
Tullamore Dew 12 and the Teeling Revival Volume II and I’ll have a collection
fit for any occasion. Ok, I still need something peaty like a Connemara too.

Sláinte!

This post took 12 pomodoros (and drams) to complete

]]>2017-01-11T15:45:48+01:00http://scottmuc.com/osx-workstation-setup-automationDISCLAIMER Try out at your own risk. This setup is not meant to be copy+paste reusable. It’s about keeping MY
workstation under source control, and this strategy may destroy the machine you wish to attempt this on.

Objective

IT infrastructure has gone down a long journey of automating all of the things. We have automated deployments, production
environments, and regression testing. We can make an API request to Amazon and get a server instances in minutes. The
developer workstation is another story. Often, the developer workstation is a finely crafted machine. Just like
production, your workstation should be treated like a hotel room rather than an owned residence.

My Setup

Why bother with this for my personal machine? It serves as a good disaster recovery method. Using this automation for
the last several years (several laptops + multiple laptop repaves) has given me a lot of confidence that I know what
is required to get my machine ready.

There are plenty of tools that help with this process. What I am going to describe is yet another
approach, but I hope the simplicity of it will be attractive to those who have struggled trying to get other frameworks
to work.

To see what’s included in this tooling take a look at the Inventory. Essentially you get shell configuration, some OSX tweaks, and a bunch of software installed.

There’s No Place Like Home

$HOME as a repository was heavily influenced by Gary Bernhardt’s dot files. I really liked the simplicity of not having extra scripting to create a bunch of symlinks. Once you have your home directory cloned, you’re already quite far down the path of having your machine the way you want it. Because it’s a repository, when you delete a file, it goes away and rerunning your setup will not restore that file. It’s inherently an idempotent system!

Another feature I like about Gary’s setup is that uses ~/bin scripts rather than liberal use of aliases in his shell profile. This way you really minimize the configuration of your shell. I personally dislike shell plugin frameworks like bash-it and oh-my-zsh as I believe they add complexity where it really isn’t warranted. Keep things simple and you don’t need frameworks to manage stuff.

That being said, not using a framework is accepting the trade-off of not getting the benefit of community updates. I personally like watching the community for inspiration, not for automatically ingesting their updates.

Awkward OSX Settings

My previous iteration of this automation was 100% pivotal-sprout based. If you look closely you will see that this
automation still invokes sprout. I’ve gone the route of using it as a collection of OSX configurations. I could maintain some of these as shell scripts, but I feel ok having this additional complexity and added dependency.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Workstation automation can be extremely flaky and that’s due to the nature of it fetching dependencies from all sorts of locations. This drives home the reason for needing to run it frequently. I can pretty much guarantee that the code that worked a month ago will not work today. Packages change name, or download locations change. This can result in a lot of mistrust of the automation.

Having a good routine of wiping your machine and setting up from scratch is a good way to ensure it all still works. I used to be the type that was proud of how long they could keep their workstation running and would do OS upgrades (Windows, OSX, and FreeBSD). Now I feel much more satisfied by destroying and recreating.

Duplication is OK

Choosing when to vendor something is an important decision to make around construction your setup. The more you vendor,
the more reproducible your automation will be. The more you vendor, the harder it is to keep up to date with changes.

The OSX installer steps is something I’d be willing to copy and paste into my own repository. Vendoring vim plugins is something I’m in favour of doing as well. The principle is that the fewer moving parts there are, the better. Even with what I believe to be a simple workstation setup, there’s still many external facing pieces that will cause failure or tricky bugs to appear.

There does not exist one true workstation to rule them all. Neither is there one workstation automation method to rule them all. Your automation is going to be a somewhat handcrafted piece of art, but it’s going to be a simple piece
of art (hopefully).

Replicating This Strategy

Attempting this kind of automation seems to be best grown and not copied. If you’re starting from scratch, the first step is running git init in your $HOME dir, adding 1 precious dot file, and pushing that somewhere off your machine.

Summary

In the end, I have a setup I’m relatively happy with. It turns out that my implementation looks oddly similar to Gerhard’s, a colleague of mine.

This post still took way too long to write making me think that I haven’t made it simple enough though. There’s still a lot of moving parts and many concepts I didn’t dive into at all (e.g.: what about my data).

Appendix

Other Tools and Strategies

Sprout – Intially this was called pivotal_workstation but transformed into a slightly more
configurable and modular system. It uses chef under the covers and is quite comprehensive.

osxc – Not sure where it was born from, but it uses ansible underneath.

All three of these strive for the same thing, but use different engines. It probably makes sense to use whichever one
uses the Configuration Management tool you’re most comfortable with. The problem though, is that these tools may add a
bit more complexity than is really necessary.

Sam Gibson wrote a great article about this using Babushka. He believed the
above styles are too complex and strived to find a simpler solution. I like it, but I felt that it could be
simplified further.

Gerhard Lazu’s workstation setup. He replaced sprout with a collection to
shell scripts that I may be tempted to migrate towards. But one thing at a time; that’s an important principle around
working on this kind of stuff. There are a lot of moving parts and it’ll only prove itself out over time.

Joey Hess has been doing this since 2000 using CVS (then SVN, then git).

SSH keys

You are probably going to want to update your code. In order to be able to push your changes to GitHub you’ll need to
have your keys. For this, I follow Tammer Saleh’s excellent post on building an encrypted usb drive for your keys.

Baseline OS

Technically you cannot start from scratch because you need at least an existing OSX machine to create the installer USB
stick. To do this, I followed the instructions on Brooke Kuhlmann’s workstation automation*
repository.

When following this process, I reformat the machines disk with an encrypted volume and always create my new machine with
a different username (to ensure my automation doesn’t make too many assumptions on pathes).

I wrote 143 journal entries over the course of 2016. After counting them all up there are far fewer than I thought,
but the frequency is actually more consistent than I thought. I had imagined I had more months that only had a couple
entries. I see this as my first step in writing more and hopefully bringing it to this website. Seeing that my
journalling actually increased by the end of the year makes me really happy. I’m going to continue this in 2017 for
sure.

Goal for 2017:

In the spirit of keeping my goal(s) simple and achievable I’m going to stick to a similar strategy as 2016.

Perform 1 Perfect Pullup

It’s been many years since I’ve been able to do a pullup. My body finally feels recovered from my previous injuries, but
it’s certainly weaker than it’s ever been. My health dashboard has already helped me reach a gym
going habit, but now I need to direct this routine to a different end. I cannot do the physical things I used to because
I’ve gotten so out of shape and my previous focus on running put too much pressure on my weak body.

Summary

As I grow older, the length of a year seems much shorter. I wonder if my previous goals were a result of not
acknowledging how much I can possibly do in that time frame.

This post took 1 pomodoro to complete

]]>2016-07-14T02:10:27+02:00http://scottmuc.com/dealing-with-contempt-culture-in-the-software-worldA few years ago I left ThoughtWorks and was considering leaving IT altogether.

Though I’m listing things related to ThoughtWorks, a lot of my weariness is morefrom IT in general. It could be an age thing, but I’ve been around long enough tosee a lot of terrible things going on in this industry. No one seems to care aboutsecurity, and the innovation that is making billions in the stock market are consumerproducts that mean almost nothing to me. It’s hard to be optimistic after EdwardSnowden revealed the NSA privacy issues.

After a long break and working at a couple more companies I am able to pinpoint some specific behaviours
of individuals that have an affect on my work ethic and general work happiness.

Contempt Culture (in software)

Recently I read an excellent post about Contempt Culture. What resonated so much with me was that I
remember being that way when I first started my career. I was impressionable and looked up to the veterans that I met at
conferences that appeared to me as people that knew everything. They’ve seen it all. They would speak with such
authority on all the things and I bought it all. I didn’t question, nor probe for reasons.

Nowadays I feel like my attitude is much better (friends, please correct me if I’m wrong), but I still have a lot of room
for improvement. But… I’m now one of those so called veterans I looked up to. I can see how much BS they were spouting
and how overconfident they were. I don’t believe I’m a bad developer, in fact I think I have a fairly strong skillset, but
I definitely don’t know as much as I perceived those veterans to know.

Reading the quote from my previous blog post reveals the contempt that I was feeling. Do I still feel the same?
Sort of, but my energy is more focused on delivering value. It feels like a weight off my shoulders.

Part of me feels that bike shedding and the narcissism of small (code) differences
are linked in some way. I don’t have any evidence whatsoever, just something to ponder. It’s easier to mock something
that differs in a trivial way. Anecdotally, I’ve heard more criticism fired at Python because of the significance of
whitespace more than any other parts of the language.

Please watch this discussion titled Why So Mean from the Alt.NET Seattle 2009 open space
conversation. It does show many of the different personalities and perspectives.

How it Affects Me (and how I deal with it)

What I’ve learnt is that this attitude can suck the energy out of me. When I meet an individual that exhibits these
behaviours I then have contempt for them! This is just as toxic and I’m struggling to deal with it. I rarely engage
with these people because of the energy it takes out of me. Here are some thoughts that come to my head when I
hear dismissive comments:

My friend made that! I saw what was there before and they have improved it so much!

If it’s so easy why don’t you do it?

You’re wasting energy, can we focus on the problem in front of us?

You’re too stupid to understand the complexity of the problem they are trying to solve.

If everyone did things the way you think they ought to be done, you think the world would be better?

Not so healthy huh? I don’t like having these thoughts. They drain me and dampen my motivation. What’s worse is that I
find myself absorbing a bit of their attitude and will potentially mimic it. I don’t know why but I get the feeling my
reaction to this is stronger than others. I wish I could ignore it, but if I could, I clearly wouldn’t be writing this
post.

Strategies for Handling Contemptuous Individuals

Aurynn’s post has a lot of good strategies to handle your own personal contempt, but what I need are ways to handle
other individuals. If I don’t, I could see myself getting overly frustrated with the industry again.

This response not only summarizes with a good list on how to deal with your own contempt but
also brought up an interesting observation about identity. The language, tool, framework
becomes an identity of sorts. However, that does bring up the point
categorizing the individual is not healthy. Placing someone in a bucket doesn’t move things forward at all.

Assume the person is experiencing imposter syndrome and is mimicing others in the field.

Ask why they have such a strong reaction. Try and find the root cause of the reaction.

Redirect the focus to the outcomes. Yes, language X has problems, but look how it is helping Y.

A recent EconTalk episode titled “What if We’re Wrong” discusses in the first 10 minutes around
the utility around strong statements. Understanding the individual may better lead to why they feel the need to voice
their disdain so loudly.

Also that contempt culture can take many forms. This year has been full of unhealthy thoughts, but this post is
intended to speak specifically about the programming industry.

Clearly I need some assistance with this. Please leave a comment with your strategies. Or, if this doesn’t bother you
much, I would love to hear why.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a “life update”. The TL;DR is that I have joined Pivotal Cloud Foundry in
January and will be moving to Dublin in June.

Reflections on Berlin and SoundCloud

My guess is the most frequent question about this is: what happened? When I posted about my decision to
move to Berlin and join SoundCloud it appeared that I had found something I really wanted to do. Looking back at the
post you can see subtle hints of doubt, but went with the option that seemed a little more risky. In the end, the risk
was worth it as I learned a heck of a lot!

The Awesome Stuff

Berlin has been my favourite city I’ve ever lived in. It’s modified future projections of where I would like to live
long term. It’s a city for humans with its comprehensive public transportation system, low cost of living, and its
openness to new cultures moving to the city.

I felt I managed to fulfill many of the goals I had set in mind in my earlier post. My most important
take-away is having developed empathy for those who speak English as a second language.

More traveling (Ukraine for Easter, Prague, London, Paris, Germany, and Switzerland). There are still so many places
to check out.

New friends (you know who you are)

Not So Awesome Stuff

Working in the media domain is very different than the public media domain. As monetization became a focus and utilizing
advertising became a core piece of it, I felt that it wasn’t a strategy I wanted to participate in. Watching Century of Self
too many times has probably made me a bit too cynical about advertising.

Really missed the ThoughtWorks culture around software development. I missed pair-programming and the role was more
consulting than it was software-dev (which is one of the reasons why I left ThoughtWorks). At the same time, I learned
how important it is to be aligned with the “how we do work” at an organisation. I can’t say SoundCloud is doing it
wrong… there’s just too little data to make that call. All I know is that it left me drained and unmotivated (but
has the opposite effect for many of the great engineers there).

I injured my hamstrings (and later my back), that definitely affected my life, but unrelated to my decision to move to
Berlin and join SoundCloud.

My personal possessions didn’t reach Berlin until July which may have made the whole move feel quite transitory since
I never quite got the chance to settle down properly. I had grown the thought of leaving SoundCloud only just a few
months after my things from Canada had arrived.

What Triggered the Change?

The funny thing is when I explain the work I was a part of in SoundCloud many folks wonder why I would ever leave. The
technology was interesting and we had a lot of autonomy. This was true, but when it comes to work, I’m a process over
product kind of person. After a few events occurred I felt the urge to explore my options. I reached out to Mathew Kocher
and he said that the offer from a year ago still stands! After living in Berlin, I didn’t have much
desire to leave the city let alone move to North America. He encouraged me to go to London and go through another round
of interviews.

In London I had a fantastic day of pairing interviews then a good evening out with Tammer Saleh. We discussed
many things about the industry (he later was a receipient of my link bombs that I often send out after an evening discussion). I was
definitely engergized about the experience but still wasn’t decided. A few weeks later, many people came to Berlin for
the Cloud Foundry Summit and there was a chance to meet some more people. I expressed that I love Berlin a lot,
and that I wasn’t ready to leave Europe. Then the option of Dublin came up. It would allow me to go to SF for 3 months
and move to Ireland in the summertime. If I do want to do consulting again, there’s a Pivotal Labs office in Berlin.

The energy I had after the pairing sessions still was on my mind. I learned that the 3rd pillar of the company is to “Be
Nice” and the people I interacted with definitely seemed to espouse this value. After a few more days of discussing the
contract and some e-mail back and forth, I gave my notice to SoundCloud and accepted the offer from Pivotal.

So What is Happening Now?

It’s quite common for companies to have a 2-3 month notice period. So I had 2 months to finish up my work at SoundCloud
and then figure out the process for a Canadian living in Germany soon to be employed in Ireland but going to begin work
in the USA. I’ll spare the details, but I managed to get my passport the day before going to SF.

After 3 weeks I’m feeling quite good about my decision. I’ve been pairing every single day and really enjoy the people
that I’m working with. There’s a strong diversity initiative as well, so hopefully the demographics of the organisation
will be just as good as ThoughtWorks. The applications for Cloud Foundry are more large scale and focused on the
Enterprise which I’ve learned is an area that I’m much more interested in (as opposed to start up products).

Since I’ve “lived” in SF before I’m not feeling very rushed. I’m spending my days as I normally would with meeting up
with friends periodically dotting my calendar. I’m excited about living in Dublin even though I’ve never set foot in
Ireland before!

Even my back is feeling a bit better. I managed to do 2 3k runs this weekend. :–)

This post took 6 pomodoros to complete

]]>2016-01-02T02:08:42+01:00http://scottmuc.com/my-resolutions-for-2016This post almost didn’t happen. 2015 holds a lot of dead-air from me in the blogging world, but I’m so compelled by my
routines that I felt that I had to do it! Honouring a self-made routine/tradition is my achilles heel and my biggest
strength at the same time.

2015 wasn’t a good year for sticking to my goals, but I still learned a lot on the way:

Brew Beer – Didn’t do well here since I didn’t brew a single batch, but there was a lot of taste testing!

Nurture a Healthy Habit – The year was off to a great start until I injured my leg. I attempted to get back into
running a bit too strong and injured myself again. If there’s something positive I can take from this though is
that I still wish to run. It’s been a very frustrating year as a result because I missed running in Berlin during
the best time of the year! I ended up gaining weight, which made me not feel so good about myself and other healthy
habits collapsed as well. The good news is that the desire is still there and I just need get back slowly.

Think More Critically – This one is a strange one because I don’t have anything countable to associate with it. In the
end I feel more clueless about everything. As I put a critical focus on anything it opens up complexity that I had
never imagined. Now I’m not sure how people are so sure about anything! I need to stop listening to so many economics
podcasts ;–).

That being said, I kicked arse on a 2014 resolution which was to learn Docker! Docker is a core
piece of technology in what I was working on at SoundCloud.

Looking back, 2015 was a difficult year to make such goals. I’ve found a lot of interesting tactics on
James Clear’s article about good habits. How would things been different had I set the goal to 1 run
per month? Even with my injury I’m sure I would have been more proactive in testing the waters with a single 3k run each month.
Also, why not make the beer brewing goal a single brew for the entire year? I held back on brewing because I was
intimidated by the equipment I would have had to purchase and store. If it was one brew, I would have simply
brewed with the few people that I’ve met in Berlin that do home brewing. Then again, it’s easy to say that
in retrospect.

Goal for 2016:

This year I’m going on a bit of a tangent from previous years. I feel I pushed 2015 too hard. It was more work than I
had anticipated. A good challenge but I set my expectations too high. 2016 is likely to be similar with moving to a new
city and starting a new job (post on that coming later this month). So I’m only going to make 1 goal. I see it as a
realigning goal, a course correction from the journey that started when I left ThoughtWorks back in 2014.

Write in a Journal

I have the urge to write, but the public forum doesn’t feel right. A real physical book where my text doesn’t flow
through prying eyes wanting to find patterns, so that they can serve me better ads. I’ve been
fairly public with my life and I’m curious about taking that down a notch. My head feels like a swirling mass of
ideas that hasn’t quite found its outlet (though those who have been out drinking with me when the topic of
economics comes up, would beg to differ).

Think of it as close-sourcing my thoughts. Once public, it’s hard to make things private, but the other way is
certainly possible.

Summary

A bit of a change from the usual. Let’s see how things are in a year, shall we?

This post took 2 pomodoros to complete

]]>2015-04-26T12:22:50+02:00http://scottmuc.com/how-to-make-masala-chai
This is the simplest masala chai recipe I know how to make. Compared to the street side chai you would get in India my
recipe differs in the fact that mine is less sweet and has a strong black tea and masala flavour (especially the ginger).
The wonderful thing about masala chai is that it’s easy to adjust to your own taste and it’s fun to experiment with.

So let’s get started!

Ingredients (for 1 mug)

½ mug of water

½ mug of high fat fresh milk (I use 3.5%)

½ thumb (a unit I made up, but is the approximate size of a thumb) of ginger

3-6 cardamom pods (depending on the freshness and size of the product you have)

1 hand of Brook Bond Taj Mahal tea

1 hand of course-unrefined sugar

Other stuff

heat source (eg: stove)

small pot

strainer

mug

chopping board

knife

Instructions

Cut the ginger into a few pieces and then crush/pound it so that the juices are flowing out. Using the flat of the knife
blade crush the cardamom pods so the seeds inside come out. Place these and the water into a pot and bring it to a boil.

Just before a boil is reached throw in the tea. If the boil is too intense, turn the heat down. Too much heat applied to
the tea will cause it to taste overly bitter. The tea should naturally spread like in the pictures above.

After about 2 minutes, add the milk and set the heat to around medium. Add a hand of sugar now (I’ve forgotten to add
sugar a few times so I just try to make it part of the routine at this point). Also remember that you can always add
sugar later. Since I tend to have a sweet snack with my chai, I like to have a less sweet chai to let the dessert
compliment the chai.

After several minutes the mixture will start to foam and rise up (I like to call this the hot break which comes from
beer brewing). This means that the proteins in the milk have become denatured (ie: cooked) and this will give you the
lovely brown skin on your chai. Turn down the heat and let the chai continue to brew for a few minutes longer in a soft
rolling boil.

Let the tea cool for a minute and transfer it directly to a mug through a strainer.

Enjoy your masala chai and the fact that your garbage can will smell awesome for days!

Adjustments

In order to make more chai, it’s just a matter of multiplying all of the ingredients. The limit is usually the size of
the pot. It can be hard to make a large batch when the pot is more than ¾ full.

Other ingredients you can use to spice things up are:

cinnamon

fennel

pepper corns

star anise

different chai (though I find Brook Bond Taj Mahal makes for the most consistent results)

chilis

What I love of masala chai is that you have an easy method for trying out many different flavours!

This post took 1 pomodoro to complete (or the time to perform this recipe)

]]>2015-01-02T02:08:42+01:00http://scottmuc.com/my-resolutions-for-2015This has become a bit of a tradition for me so I can’t quite writing these now. This one will be a bit different than
the previous ones though. Normally these posts are my technical resolutions. I’m not that ambitious anymore when it
comes to technical learning so I’ve dropped that from the title. Even though I tend to despise meaningless dates, I look
at resolutions as one large pomodoro. So the tradition lives on!

Going on a career break sort of twisted everything around in 2014. Still, it was interesting to see how
I did:

Increase Signal to Noise Ration – I’m only following 118 people on Twitter now as opposed to 627, but my “friend”
count on FaceBook went up to 507 from 480. Considering that Twitter is where most of the noise comes from, I think I
succeeded in this goal.

Learn Docker – I’ve yet to run the docker CLI, so didn’t go far with this. I’m not terribly interested in it now as my
frustration with tech is still there. 2015 may be a success if I still don’t touch docker.

Do Meaningful Work – Does quitting my job and traveling the world for 9 months count as success? It does to me so I
think I slayed this resolution! I’m also getting back into the workforce with a company that is in a domain I care
about and I’ve gotten the opportunity to be on the board of advisors for an interesting clean energy start up.

Goals for 2015:

I think the time off has given me a new perspective. These goals are more about looking at myself externally and
figuring out what kind of design changes to I want to make on myself.

Brew Beer

Given that I want to look into the business of beer, it would help if I’ve actually brewed some. I believe brewing 10
batches is a reasonable goal. If I can’t do this, then I can safely drop the idea of building a beer related business in
the future. I enjoy publishing my chai experiments and I’ll do the same thing with my beer brewing. Will
probably publish them on this blog for now.

Progress: 0 batches brewed

Nurture a Healthy Habit

Over the last 15 years of my life I’ve ridden a health rollercoaster. I can’t recall any year where I didn’t go
off the routine and regress to my old unhealthy habits. This year I’m aiming to be more proactive around my habits and
plan a bit better when I can see potential for a habit to break (eg: when traveling, or a busy period). My goal is run
at least 10 times every month. Be sure to verify my results on Strava. I am training for a half marathon but
this is very typical of my health ambitions. Do something big, and then stop.

Think More Critically

This could be due to having a lot of time to consume too much media over the last year, but I feel that I should be more
thoughtful in my communication and critical of my messages. It’s easy to type out a pithy tweet skipping a load of
context. When being critical I will do due dilligence in citing research when trying to impose my ideas, or at least be
more transparent in pointing out how much is anecdotal. This one is a tougher one to measure. The only thing I can think
of is comparing the number of tweets over the course of the years, and having source lists in all my blog posts (or
stating the source are my own observations and are completely theoretical).

Summary

When reading my 2014 post I can tell that I was getting jaded about the IT industry. It looks like I’m still a bit
jaded, but this time I’m steering the ship away from IT a bit. Let’s see what these new waters are like.

Ugh, I left this post until way too late. Unfortunately I’ll have to drop a lot of detail as 3 months is pretty hard to
sum up in a single blog post. Hopefully I can do it justice as India is a place I’m very fond of. I feel bad for all the
wonderful little experiences that happened and didn’t get written about. I’ll just have to visit India again and
properly journal the whole experience.

Arrival

The minute I got off the plane I was greeted with the familiar scent of Bangalore. The city gives me a bizarre sense of
being home. My arrival to India this time around is much different than the paniced call to Calgary at 4am where my
arrange pickup wasn’t there. This time I breezed through the crowd to the taxi line and made my way to Indiranagar where
I was to stay in a wonderful guest house for the next long while.

It was the end of monsoon season and there was a bit more rain than last time. It was quite refreshing because it kept
the air clean for a little while. There was one evening where the road leading up to my apartment was flooded and had to
wade through knee deep “water”.

Work Life Balance

My goal in India was to finish my job search and just chill out for a little while. But first, I had to find a place
where I could hang out for most of the day to use the Internet. I first tried Cobalt which was on Church St,
just a few minutes away from MG Road metro station. It had good Internet and there were other people around that made it
feel nice. The next day I tried Beaglesloft as it was started by an ex-ThoughtWorker. It was a short walk from Trinity metro station, and it was decent too. A bit too quiet though.

Finding Nilenso

There was one more place to check out. An ex-ThoughtWorker, Steve from Calgary, has lived in Bangalore for a
while and has is part of a software collective called Nilenso. I also recommend reading his
blog as he is an excellent writer and has written some very insightful posts about life.

After one day of hanging out with the folks at Nilenso I had realized I had found my home. The whole group was extremely
welcoming to me. I had met Steve once before (for like around 5 minutes) and didn’t know the others yet I now consider
them friends and will visit them every time I go back to Bangalore. They set me up with good Internet, a workstation
setup and meals! It was really hard not to apply and work with them. They also were excellent test subjects for my
chai experiments

Pune

After a few weeks I scheduled a trip to Pune to see some old friends and meet a company for a job interview. I had
Internet issues at the place I was staying at so I had to go to Starbucks nearly everyday for interviews and other
correspondance.

The job interview went really well, but declined to pursue the job any further as it felt like it would be ThoughtWorks
part 2. I used the down time to write a couple blog posts and do a little cooking.

Chennai

I wanted to meet some friends in Chennai as well so I did another short outing to see them. Besides eating awesome South
Indian food all day long I collaborated with Subhas Dandapani on devopsbookmarks.com. All I
really did was “project manage” and Subhas essentially did all the work.

Beer Tour

Bangalore has a beer scene that’s growing strong. In this trip alone I was able to visit 10 brewpubs and that’s not
hitting them all!

Toit – Definitely one of my favourites. I think I went there at least once a week. I highly recommend their
weiss beer.

Murphy’s – Only went their once for lunch. None of their beers really stood out to me. I regret not going
again because the view is quite nice.

Windmills – Overall, I think Windmills makes the best beer in Bangalore. It’s a bit of a trek because
it’s all the way in Whitefield.

Barleyz – The beer isn’t that great, but the rooftop terrace is a good reason to go there. All the beers
tasted too watery.

Arbor – Arbor always shows up as the place to go for the best beer in Bangalore. I do think the beer is ok,
but it’s not even close to Windmills in quality. I also found their beer gave me an allergic reaction. The beer is not
filtered and I know sometimes that can affect me, but it was more pronounced there.

Vapour – I ignored this spot for a while due to people around me saying it wasn’t very good. While not all
beers were of consistent quality, the red ale was pretty good and their weiss beer was decent too. It’s also a nice
roof top patio that serves decent food.

Big Pitcher – A giant establishment. Only checked it out once. There were a couple decent beers, but
the others tasted really off.

Brewsky – Best IPA I’ve had in India. The dunkel was also really good, but the rest were quite bad.

Prost – I’ve heard mixed reviews about the beers, but I found them to be pretty good. The Big Ben ale reminds
me a lot of the English Bay Pale Ale, which is an old favourite of mine. Their stout is quite good too, which is a
beer that doesn’t seem to get much love in other Bangalore pubs.

Pun Town

One of the reasons why Bangalore is close to my heart has to be their love of puns. Here are some of the stores that
were within 1km of where I was staying:

Blind Love

Berry’ed Alive

Phobidden Fruit

Wearhouse

Infinitea

Chaipatty

Oh, and I Got a Job!

Over the course of a few months I had interviewed with several companies. It was interesting trying to manage all of
this while moving around and being in terribly inconvenient time zones. I’ve already written and huge post
about the job hunt process. Now I have a blog that if read in order really doesn’t make any sense.

Summary

All and all, this trip to India is a very stark contrast compared to my previous visit. I didn’t do a whole lot of
traveling. It was really a low-key retreat so that I could do lots of reading, podcast listening, computering, and
reflecting. Sort of makes me wish I wrote about my previous trip because that one was definitely a lot more things going
on, but this trip was exactly what I needed/wanted.

*This post took an unknown number of pomodoros because I lack discipline :–( *

]]>2014-12-10T06:09:27+01:00http://scottmuc.com/why-i-like-running

I’ve been an off and on jogger for the last 2 years, but my goal is to be a jogger for the rest of my life. For some
reason I’ve felt compelled to journal my reasons. If one person thinks to take up jogging, then that would be wonderful.

Inspiration

The Oatmeal made a fantastic comic of his reasons for running and found that there’s a lot of overlap. Of
course I don’t run ultra marathons, nor have I been running for a decade, but I find this comic inspirational and I look
at it every couple months. Please read his comic, it’s that good!

Growing up as a chubby person I can identify with the Blerch.

I definitely look at running as an asset to my eating balance sheet. Dieting makes life more complex so I choose the
simple approach of not being picky about what I eat. If it’s unhealthy, then I try to control my portion size.

My expectations around how I’ll look are realistic. It’s that I love how I feel when I’m running. My waistline may
not change but I have become comfortable with my body when I run. If that starts meaning more to me then I’ll add
other forms of exercise to my routine.

Simplicity

One of my favourite talks is by Rich Hickey, called Simple Made Easy. It’s funny that I
associate a software talk with life habits rather than software. I use running to explain the concepts to people that
confuse the term simple and easy. The simplicity of running is a major reason I like it so much. There’s very little in
the way of dependencies that you need. A decent pair of shoes is pretty much it, and perhaps climate appropriate
clothing. The only thing stopping you from doing it is your own will power. Making it harder is simply a matter of adding
distance. It’s liberating to not own expensive equipment or have a contract with some sleezy gym. I can just put on my
shoes and run.

Mood Altering

I used to wonder if I exercised more when I was in a good mood, or if I got into a good mood after exercise. My personal
anecdotal experience is that people used to notice my changed mood and would ask “did you work out, you’re behaving… a
bit too happy”. This has added benefits to my work and my learning. This is backed up by science in the class I took
called: Learning how to Learn (I did a book review for it too)

Encourages Good Behaviour

When I make a running goal I become very disciplined around good habits. I signed up the
Berlin Half Marathon and I’m much more inclined to not have a 2nd beer in the evening getting up at 6am
has becoming easier and easier. I’ve signed up for the James Clear newsletter and one article really
struck home with me as I build up habits. I now know that I need to avoid the Second Mistake otherwise
my habit will fall apart. This gives me the allowance to miss a run and not feel like a complete failure. Instead my
mind switchs to the thought that I MUST not miss my next run. It sounds so simple and I can’t believe I never
noticed this before in my behaviour. My habits drop when I make my second mistake consistently. Again, I like how this
concent is backed up by science. Armed with this I intend to be an off-and-on runner no more!

Health?

It’s odd, but the health aspects of running are a secondary benefit to me. Though a potentially
real good one. Then again, most of the other benfits of running are also healthy. Let’s just say
that my aim with running is not to be skinnier and athletic, though I won’t complain if those things happen as a result
of running.

The Only Social Media Spam I Always Like

We all complain about the huge amount of information that comes our way. From baby pictures, wedding pictures, or
political kibitzing, our mood affects how we ingest these pieces. For me, I can safely say that I LOVE it when
people post their fitness accomplishments. It comes across as encouraging. So I have to shout out a big thank you to
Hiyasmin for catalyzing this new hobby of mine. Another thank you goes to the South Africa crew (pictured below)
who egged me on to join a trail run series. If you wish to give me encouragement, please add me on Strava.

People I know that run off the top of my head:

Rose

Frankie

Cengiz

Srini

Derek H

KK

Rebecca

Jithu

Zabil

Kai

All of you, please keep pushing me! :–)

This post took 4 pomodoros to complete

]]>2014-12-05T05:13:52+01:00http://scottmuc.com/what-makes-something-a-devops-toolThe term “devops” has only existed for 5 years and the trend is to label your tool as a devops tool in order for it to
gain traction. When I look at the landscape of tools, most look like Ops tools, just relabeled.

The reason this has been on my mind is that myself and Subhas released a website called
Devops Bookmarks to aggregate all the tools in the landscape. Using a Github Pull Request
for contributions results in reviewing a lot of tools and after a short amount of time I found myself second-guessing
the need for such a website. It felt that we were diluting the devops term.

I’m greatly concerned the Devops Bookmarks is going to feel the same unless context is added to support the inclusion of
the tools. It’s why I made a devops links post on my blog so that I could explain a little
bit why something is included.

Honestly, Patrick Debois’s blog is a must read to get adequate context around devops. He has an
excellent introductory post (written almost 5 years ago) and he’s made an excellent slide deck pointing
out the same concepts I’m struggling with right now.

In that presentation the point of articulating desired Behaviours is very clear. To me a devops tool is something that
promotes good behaviour if it’s executed well. The desired behaviours are cleary represented by
John Willis’ excellent blog post titled: What Devops Means to Me.

Examples

Chef – promotes the behaviour of automating the configuration of machines. This reduces the tribal knowledge and
provides a collaborative environment to work on this automation (because it’s now code instead of a Word doc).

Vagrant – enables the ability to create production like environments anywhere. All roles in the software lifecycle
work with consistent infrastructure, thus can share their improvements and feedback.

Gauntlt – security testing for humans. Using Cucumber, security tests can be easily read by everyone and the tests
can be executed in a continuous integration pipeline.

Not Sure About These

Gitorious – is it a devops tool because having source control is necessary?

Static Analysis – is a python static analysis tool really a devops tool? What about something like Puppet Lint?

Are some tools purely dev, and some purely ops? Everything lies on a spectrum and I guess what I’m wondering is if
devops tools are simply the ones that are in the middle of that spectrum.

Moving Forward

I’m torn, but I think a feature in Devops Bookmarks should be a requirement to explain why the tools
is a devops tool, and what behaviours does it try to support. If no explanation is provided, then it cannot be listed.

Currently the website is broken down by Topics, but that could change to Behaviours and the tools can be tagged with
the behaviours that it supports.

I can’t say exactly when the job search began. It began with the creation of a Note in Evernote (great tool
for this type of task). It was much different than any other job search I’ve done, though I haven’t done many as I tend
to stick to job for at least 4 years at a time. The key difference with this search was that I wasn’t working, and
wasn’t in a hurry to find a job. This allowed me to stick to some rules and a manifesto:

- Being open to being located anywhere I’ve been before, and know at least someone there- Someone I know and respect must have worked there or works there now- The company must have cloud in the name ;-)

Scott MucJob Application Criteria

manifesto:

- People happiness over company success- Autonomy over being embedded in a machine- Physical and mental health over product growth- Access to beer over location

Scott MucPreferred Employer Manifesto

Those set me up much better to see if the company was a fit for me. It remains to be seen, but I think that being open
about my job search, my principals, and not being in a rush will result in a much better mutual partnership. It was a
zero stress endevour and I wish more people had the same privilege to be more precise about the work they apply for.

After several months I interviewed with a handful of companies, but eventually I narrowed it down.

Then There Were Two

Cloud Foundry – Creators of an open source PaaS software that allows for companies to create
their own Heroku. I’m not too familiar with the details of the product. It’s not like you take a
piece of PaaS enabling software for a test drive every day. Despite not being knowledgable about their product, my
desire to work with them grew as a result of their fantastic interview process.

Every interview required pairing and coding. For me, this delivered a clear idea on how they work and that they prefered
a show me don’t tell me approach to interviewing (which I think is awesome). The first pairing
exercise was pretty simple and I was the navigator. As remote pairing exercises go, this was great.
Because I wasn’t driving, I wasn’t self-conscious about my IDE skills or typing. David, who interviewed me, was
clearly prepared and made the interview smooth and fun.

The other two interviews were both roughly around 3 hours long. I was pairing with someone on some small code change
they were assigned to do. Both of them were with code and libraries I wasn’t familiar with (go lang, anguluarJS), but
I was amazed at how much that didn’t seem to matter. I asked questions, got the gist of what they were trying to do,
and did my best to keep iterating forward as much as possible given my knowledge constraints. The pairs were fun to work
with and I appreciated how they were able to slow down to my level to include me in the process of solving the issue.
I’ve learned a lot on how to conduct an interview from this process.

I came away really feeling like these were people I would love to work with. More than that, I loved their discipline in
XP practices. Working with Cloud Foundry, I could become an expert in this field. They also respected employees work/life
balance and that’s crucial for me.

The job would be located in San Francisco, and the pay would reflect that, though the cost of living would offset it.
It’s a city I’ve lived in before and enjoyed. I have a lot of friends there and would be immersed in beer culture.
My role would be a developer working on pieces of Cloud Foundry. So it’s an opportunity to develop my dev chops again.

Soundcloud – The only way I can describe it is Twitter for audio. I’ve only used the basic recording
functionality of their service (my profile) and do listen to a few podcasts that are hosted by them.

Their interview process felt a bit more ad hoc compared to Cloud Foundry. After the initial screening interview with
Chris, who I would correspond with during the whole process, there was a developer assignment.

I had a blast working on the dev assignment! I had the luxury of not having a job so I got to spend a decent amount of
time on it. I’m unsure about my code, but what I enjoyed was the process of how I grew the solution. Something that you
can’t really demonstrate with a code submission. A pairing interview would have been nice so I could better get to know
how they work on a problem. I never did get any feedback on my submission. It would be nice to receive some just to get
a better feel for how they review code and deliver feedback.

After that I had a few more interviews more related to the role that they had envisioned I would fill and that would be
a member of the Continuous Delivery team. When I heard that my reaction was on how that’s a bit
of an anti-pattern. After discussing it with them, I could see the team that they have formed aligns very much with I
would do if I were asked to create a “Continuous Delivery” team. It was great to see a bit of a shared mindset.

The location would be in Berlin, and the pay also reflects that. Though the cost of living is lower. I’ve visited Berlin
twice and really enjoyed the city. I only know a handful of people there, but it is closer to people I know from all
around the area. The beer culture is definitely a huge plus, and can be great if I meet up with beer brewers in the
community. Being part of a CD team that’s breaking down a monolith should provide some valuable experience and put me in
a position to practice a lot more than I preach.

What Did I Choose?

Both opportunities aligned well with my rules and manifesto. After a week of thinking (cough over-analyzing) about
it, I decided to accept the offer from Soundcloud! That means I’ll be moving to Berlin in January 2015.

My mind kept flipping back and forth. Initially I thought for sure I was going to Cloud Foundry. I had already told
friends that I was going to San Francisco. The professionalism of the interview process had me convinced
that’s where I would be most comfortable.

One of my best friends taught me a trick when it comes to making choices. Flip a coin and assign each choice to a
side. Treat the coin as if it’s deciding your fate. If what results makes you feel joy and happiness, that’s the right
choice. If you sort of deep down wish that the other side won, then you pick the other one. She suggested it with this
decision and I chickened out. Though what I ended up doing had the same result. I created a poll and posted it on Twitter.
It didn’t really matter what the results were, but I noticed something. One, I voted for Berlin. Two, I was cheering on
Berlin while the votes were coming in.

Choosing What Scares You

SoundCloud felt like the riskier and scarier option to me which usually means a greater chance to grow and learn. Don’t
get me wrong, Cloud Foundry would been a great chance to grow and learn, but I felt that it would be focused in the
technology spectrum. There looks to be more potential to grow as a person with SoundCloud.

Learning a Language (That’s Not a Programming Language)

I have a hidden life goal of learning a second language. When I was a coach at ThoughtWorks University I had some
tough experiences with learners that did not speak English as their first language. I want to feel and understand better
what it’s like to speak another language. There’s a lot of potential for transfer of knowledge (ooh, applying my
Learning how to Learn lessons already) when translating. SoundCloud provides German lessons as a benefit and I plan on
taking advantage of that perk.

More F1

Nearly the entire F1 calendar is accessible from Berlin! I can continue fulfilling my other life goal which is to attend
all F1 races in my life time. These are the tracks that I can reach by train or a short flight that I haven’t attended
yet: Monaco, Sochi, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Spain, and Austria.

Access to Beer

This leads to another life goal. To break off from technology and have a business in the beer domain.
In my Evernote journal I had a grade on each company/location on beer alignment. Of course both locations are
exceptional locations for a beer fan. San Francisco had a bit of a higher score because I know people there that do home
brewing. I’m sure I can find a home brew community in Berlin.

Music/Audio Domain

Working in the music/audio domain! At CBC it was awesome being surrounded by music nerds. Sorry, but I’ll choose
music nerds over tech nerds. Especially as my interest in the tech world is diminishing.

More Travel

So many travel opportunities being in central Europe. I hope to visit my relatives in Ukraine and friends in
Switzerland, England, Turkey, Czech Republic, Germany, and Hungary. With 5 weeks of holidays I’ll be exploring and
visiting as much as possible.

Also, a part of me doesn’t want to live in the USA. Cloud Foundry is also in London, but I would
want to be at the hub of the product development which is primarily in San Francisco. There would have been an option to
move to London after a year though, but my decision making was based more on the immediate change.

Show Me the Money

At first I was really concerned about how much less SoundCloud offered compared to Cloud Foundry. I took a look at a
cost of living website and calculated that to get the equivalent of an SF salary in Berlin, it would
have to be 56.3% percent (eg: making $56,300 in Berlin is equivalent to $100,000 in SF). Comparing the salary I was
offered it’s at 55.7%. So it’s a little bit lower, but not as crazy low as I thought.

It did take me on a tangent and wonder why we tend to care so much about salaries (I really wish salaries were public, I
don’t keep mine much of a secret). My hypothesis is that your salary is a concrete tangible thing, whereas how much you
spend is harder to determine. If you’re in Berlin making $56,300 and spend $50,000, then you’ve save $6,300. If you make
$100,000 in SF and spend $95,000, you’ve actually saved less. Unfortunately figuring out the amount you spend is left to
discipline around budgets.

What I Don’t Like

This means I’m joining a company that is becoming more tied to the big labels and entering the advertising space. I’m
hoping to learn more about how this system works so that I can learn to be a more educated critic.

Summary

I just reread my post from the beginning of this career break. This post and that one seem to align really
well and it gives me comfort in my decision. I really love the cadence my life has had for almost the last 20 years.
Keep an eye here for my next steps 5 years from now. Wish me luck!

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate as it rained most of the time I was there. On the plus side, I picked up a
cold on my way from Ukraine and wasn’t feeling very adventurous anyways. I spent 3 days enjoying the sound of the rain,
and watching all of the Harry Potter movies. I picked up some groceries the day I arrived and was able to be pretty
self-sufficient.

On the last day my cold was disappearing and the weather outlook was brighter. Just in time for my meet up with Orsolya and a tour of
Veszprém and Tihany. Both places had the European charm that I’ve enjoyed so much on this trip.
The sun came out while walking around Inner Lake (pic 3 below). Orsolya explained what life is like in rural Hungary
and I shared stories of my life. My favourite question was when she asked how I planned my travels. I never really
thought about it, but I replied saying that it was just a combination of many little trips. With each little trip I had
to plan the transition to the next trip and the opened up opportunities for other little trips.

After the day I was feeling recovered from my cold, and happy to have a new friend. Then I headed back to Budapest to
catch a flight to Milano for the last F1 in my travels.

Italian Grand Prix (Milano)

Figured that I could fit one more F1 race in this trip! I used some points to get a free hotel in Milano. The
commute to the race track is pretty long so I didn’t really have much time to explore the city. Srini, who went
to the British GP with me, got his Shengen visa and was finally able to explore outside
of Istanbul and the UK. He couldn’t come to the race but we got to hang out in the evenings when our respective daily
activities were done.

At the race track there’s an abundance of people playing versions of the shell game . I watched it for
a bit and thought it looked pretty easy. I played once and was absolutely sure of my pick and lost 50 euros. I realized
I got scammed and was initially upset. Then I realized why I played the game. I wanted to win some easy money; how was I
any different than the perpetrators of the scam? It reminded me that no matter how “good” you try to be, temptation is
always there. I thought I could win a quick buck and I was being just as greedy as the scam artists. I laugh at the
experience now, and see it as a valuable lesson. I spent some time watching these games and saw all the tricks they play
and now understand why it’s called a “confidence game”. I could see ways to “win”, but I would be playing against a
person who plays for hours everyday. I think their confidence will win in the long run.

As I alluded to earlier, the commute to my seat was quite long. My record time to my seat was 1 hour and 40 minutes, but
it was 2 hours most of the time. One of the nice things about F1 is that they aren’t too strict about what you can bring
to the track. Each day I bought food from a local grocery store. Below is a picture of my breakfast on race day (yes
beer at 9:00am, don’t judge). Buying from the on track vendors is a complete rip-off. For the price of a couple beers, I
was stocked up for the day.

As for the race, the weekend was full of awesome moments. I watched both GP2 and GP3 races, and the F1 race was full of
awesome passes. I was sitting at the first turn which is at the end of a very fast straight (circuit diagram).
Hopefully this historic track doesn’t close, but I am so happy that I got to experience Monza before anything happens to
the event.

Of course my travels wouldn’t be complete without meeting up with Ilias Bartolini, a ThoughtWorker I met when I
was in India. He’s on a project in Milano and we caught up over dinner at Maruzzella. Again, a reminder of the
network that grew out of working at ThoughtWorks is global and full of such wonderful people.

Turkish Delight

The last leg of my European travels is a stay in Istanbul (not Constantinople). There’s a big ThoughtWorks
project there and was able to stay in Srini and Toy’s apartment (picture of the view to the right).
I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be there so it was nice to have the flexibility of a ThoughtWorker’s accommodation.

The reason for the uncertain length is that I would be applying for my Indian visa from here. I won’t go
into too much detail, but the process was relatively painless. The website is horrible and doesn’t work in all browsers,
but once I got my application submitted, the rest of the process was straightforward. In a little over a week I got my
visa.

At this point in time I was beginning the interview process for several organizations. Much of my time was spent doing
coding exercises and submitting them, or doing calls. I really felt things were going forward and that in some time I’ll
actually have figured out where I’ll be living after all of this traveling.

It was a bit of a mini reunion with several people too. I met up with David Simon, who I climbed Kilimanjaro
with. There was also a bit of a Calgary reunion where I met up with Isa Goksu who was my roommate for
over a year and I probably hadn’t seem him in over 2 years! When I met up with Isa, Cengiz Han
was also there, smoking sheesha. He too was in Calgary, usually complaining about the cold, yet both of them talked
about how much they miss the Calgary days.

Oh right, I’m in Istanbul! In the slack time, I spent many days wandering around this incredible city. My friend
Rose has a picture filled post that better captures the beauty of the city (and of other European
cities I’ve visited).

Most of my day trips started out at Taksim Square, which was the space that the Gezi Park Riots took
place at in 2013. Taking the metro from where I was staying was easy and efficient. From there I went down Istiklal Street
which is a big shopping area. My first stop was Dürümzade which was made famous by Anthony Bordain’s
visit. Let’s just say I went there 3 times during my stay! The adana dürüm was one of my favourite meals in Istanbul.
The area is a maze of winding hilly streets and I was content to wander this part of the city for a long time. Some days
I would hangout at Kronotrop which is an excellent coffee bar. There’s wifi and friendly people who are
very open to helping out a tourist with their Turkish. The pictures below are of: Istiklal Street, small street leading
to Dürümzade, and outside of Dürümzade.

On another day I walk down further and crossed the Galata Bridge and navigated through all the
fishermen to the other side (pic 1 below, you can see Galata Tower in the background). Once on Old
Istanbul side I follow the meandering alleys in the direction of Hagia Sophia (pic 2 below). How I arrive there I
don’t know because the roads go in many different directions and they are very crowded. I kept on having to back track
as I took many wrong turns. It was a lot of fun to be lost in the shuffle. Unfortunately I arrived there after the
museum was closed so I didn’t get to see inside. Last destination was the Blue Mosque which is probably
one of the most famous landmarks (hard to say because there are so many). I was lucky to arrive in between prayer times
and was able to go inside. It was so majestic on the inside that I believe I sat there for at least 45 minutes just
soaking in the atmosphere. I couldn’t get a decent picture inside with my phone (which has been my only camera on this
trip). I did manage to get a decent snap as the sun was getting low on the horizon (pic 3 below).

One day walking around beautiful Old Istanbul wasn’t enough so I made another walking tour from Taksim Square. This
time, instead of going east to all the great mosques and monuments I kept on going South to the Grand Bazaar.
Walking through the bazaar is like being transported in time. I used to think India was a sensory explosion, but this
place comes pretty close. It was also a ‘90s time warp as I couldn’t get the following song out of my head:

Never have I felt so immersed in history. I’ve seen some historic places in my travels. The throngs of people that
still populate these places made the history feel more alive. At some point I’ll have to go back to Turkey when I’m not
quite so traveled out and explore more of the countries beauty and friendly people.

Onward to India

That’s it for my travels in Europe for nearly 3 months. I now have the idea of writing a post about the metrics of this
career break. It’ll be a good way to close out the series. But not yet! Now off to India for a few months to hang out
with friends, and get re-invigorated about software development.

This post took 10 pomodoros to complete

]]>2014-10-26T09:05:53+01:00http://scottmuc.com/book-review-a-mind-for-numbers-by-barbara-oakley
Over the last 4 weeks I’ve been taking the Coursera course Learning how to Learn on the
recommendation of my friend Srini. The 2nd assignment in the course is to create a presentation or some
form of media to present an understanding of the topics. An accompaniment to the course is the book,
A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley (the primary course instructor), which is a short read but very
insightful and full of references. I’m thoroughly enjoying the course and love the concept around the assignment. This
blog is my way of trying to synthesize ideas that are flying around in my head, which is exactly the purpose of the
assignment.

Over my education and career, I feel that I have developed some pretty good habits. The book has confirmed some of these
habits and given me an understanding around why they work. It’s also able to point out some flaws that I tend to
down-play, but now realize that they are habits I need to deal with.

Core Concepts

The material in the book (and the course) were broken up into easy to consume chunks (see what I did there?).
I can’t really cover all of it here but these are the 3 concepts that really stuck with me.

Chunking

Chunks can be thought of as an abstraction around a collection of specific thoughts. When I speak to another developer
and I say that this code makes a web request, that is a chunk of knowledge that I’ve developed. I could break that
phrase down and say: establish a TCP connection with the remote server, using the HTTP protocol send a GET request
message, the server will receive this and route it to an appropriate controller, the application code will send an HTTP
response, the client will take the results and render the HTML to the browser. Woah, that was a lot of detail, and
that’s one example of why it’s important to chunk knowledge.

It wasn’t mentioned in the book, but a lot of what I read on chunking looked like reaching the competent level on the
Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition. I’m now curious if diffuse mode is an essential part of
becoming proficent or an expert in a particular topic.

This section of the book has made me realize some flaws in the way I learn and I feel I fall into the trap called
illusion of competence. This can be caused by poor learning practices (below), and I know I am guilty of many of
these. Speaking of the Dreyfus model, Erik Dietrich wrote an article about the Advanced Beginner,
which is another great way of explaining the illusion of competence.

* Passive rereading* Letting highlights overwhelm you* Merely glancing at a problem’s solution and thinking you know how to do it* Waiting until the last minute to study* Repeatedly solving problems of the same type that you already know how to solve* Letting study sessions with friends turn into chat sessions* Neglecting to read the textbook before you start working problems* Not checking with your instructors or classmates to clear up points of confusion* Thinking you can learn deeply when you are being constantly distracted* Not getting enough sleep

I’ve been lucky to accidentally avoid some of these habits. As a computer savvy person for the last 25 years, I still
prefer taking my notes on paper. I’ve always stressed sleep too. I’m definitely guilty of passive rereading, but I’m
getting much better now. Solving similar problems is another one I need to catch myself doing.

Diffuse and Focused Modes of Thinking

Focused Mode – When the brain is in this mode, it’s busy building up foundations of material for access later. I
like to think of it as going to the gym. You’re exercising ideas and building up their strength. If you don’t practice
them deliberately, they can lose strength. If you don’t focus on concepts with discipline, you don’t effectively
chunk the concepts. When you get up from your task and realize that a lot more time has gone by than you had expected,
then you know you’ve been in the focused mode.

Diffuse Mode – This is where synthesis of multiple ideas (or chunks) happens. Our brain is good at continuing effort, solving
problems, while our bodies are performing activities like going for a walk, running, socializing, and cooking. This is
why when struggling with a problem late at night, sleeping on it, usually results in some new insights in the morning.
You know when you have yesterdays problem figured out in the morning during your shower? That’s the diffuse mode kicking in.
Using the workout analogy, this is like using your in-shape body to enjoy life: traveling, playing with your children,
fixing up your garden.

What’s important to understand is that both of these modes can’t operate at the same time. I even wrote
about this a while ago and this book has given me the knowledge to better understand what I was observing when I wrote
that post. As a developer, the state of flow (deep focused mode) has its appeal, but breaking that up so that you can
piece together your new knowledge is equally important.

Sometimes you’ll hear someone say that they are a great multi-tasker. This usually results in an inability to focus!
If someone is a multi-tasker, then they are taking time away from the focused mode of operating, and thus fall into
the many ways not to learn.

Procrastination and Habits

The topic of procrastination was very informative. The explanation of how dopamine effects long term beneficial actions
(reference) is insightful and can be used to influence how we develop habits. The book is full of
ideas on how prevent procrastination and here’s my list of tactics:

Zero Notifications – this is an easy one for me as I already try to live a notification free life. My phone is
almost always on silent unless I’m expecting a call or message. All my applications on my phone and computer have
notifications turned off. It’s very hard to think of any reason why any notification would need immediate action.

Pomodoro Technique – I’ve been a fan of this process for a long time. Procrastination doesn’t stand
a chance when the timer is on. I like to use pomodoro one on my laptop. There are 4 components of
developing a habit, and the first one is the cue. Starting the timer triggers me to go into a focused mode.

Self Control (pictured) – This application does a machine level block of the hostnames that you specify for a
specific time period. It runs outside of the web-browser so it’ll block applications that talk to these services and
even killing the process or rebooting your machine won’t get the hostname working again. I will use this every time
I’m doing a pomodoro.

Process over Product – Unless the task is very very small, the time allocated to a single pomodoro should be
process based. As of right now, I have on my task list the following: “2 pomodoros of coursera project”. This keeps
the focus on the activity and now the anxiety around the outcome. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to complete
this post, but I know if I chip away at it with time-boxes of focus it’ll be completed before I know it.

I like reading about other people’s techniques and thought James Clear has a good
blog post and a good list. On my reading list is Daily Rituals which looks very
interesting. One thing that seems clear, is that many productive people have developed a system and it’s important to
discover my own.

Summary

I began reading the book before taking the course and immediately benefited from a process that is described in the
book. The book on its own is a fantastic resource and is an excellent compliment to the course. I really think taking the
course at the same time instilled a lot of the information far better than if I had only just read the book. I was
surprised when I finished the book because my Kindle reported that I was only 65% complete when I was at the end. Well
that’s because the remainder is a massive collection of references of all the research that’s been done on all of the
topics! It shows that the content is truly backed by science which is refreshing given all the anecdotal type of
information that’s published on the Internet.

Reading the book and taking the course was very meta; as I learned techniques from the
book, I applied them to the course and vice versa. I get the feeling this is going to be a book that I read on a yearly
basis (spaced repetition) to continuously improve these concepts. This post could have been a lot longer, but I’d rather
encourage you to read the book yourself and practice the exercises at the end of each chapter.

]]>2014-10-16T08:29:46+02:00http://scottmuc.com/valuable-links-podcasts
It’s quite surprising that I haven’t really brought up the topic of podcasts on my blog considering that
I’ve been consuming them for almost 10 years! My methods and taste have changed a lot over the years. I want a place
to point people when asked about what podcasts I listen to, and with a little more context than just a pure list.

Software / Tools

A podcast is such a simple concept (from the technical side) that it allows for a lot of tools and applications to be
created around the idea. Nowadays I pretty much use a single application on my phone. I’m generally only concerned with
the mobile experience since I try to listen to podcasts when I’m on the move and when I’m not focusing on work. Ask me
to listen to a podcast while programming and you’ll discover that I won’t be able to recall anything from the podcast
(or that I don’t do any programming). The application I use is PocketCasts. The homepage is full of
hyperbole and non-truthes (eg: … deliver the updates instantly…), but it’s an alright application and fits my needs for
now. Most importantly, it allows me to export my subscribed shows as an OPML file which I’ve made
available to you.

What I Am Listening to Now

Podcasts are a great way to tap into interests of all different types. You’ll notice that only a few are related to my
professional life. Listening to podcasts is a wonderful activity and I do get a lot out of them, there becomes a point
where you’ve found too much good content and there isn’t enough time to listen to them all.

Economics

I begun listening to this show at the beginning of my career break. The
host, Russ Roberts, does a great job of letting the guests speak without pushing his views too often.
It’s honestly changed how I think about problems in the world and how to best approach them. Economics is becoming a
tool that I use to help me understand how things are, and how to possibly alter them. The talks are well balanced and
help me see the other side of issues that I normally don’t think of. When a new episode appears I look forward to
listening to it regardless of the topic!

Yuval Levin on Burke, Paine, and the Great Debate – The difference between the right and left had been
something I hadn’t thought deeply about. This conversation made me realize I’m more right thinking than I thought. It
also made me understand that neither are “bad”.

Martha Nussbaum on Creating Capabilities and GDP – There are other conversations around GDP, but this one
really stood out to me. I think Martha does an exceptional job of explaining how GDP is not a sufficient metric and
that we still have a long way to go to get people to the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy.

Yet another podcast that talks about world events and how they affect the economy. Each episode covers 2-4 topics. This
is starting become one of my required listening podcasts to stay informed about current events. The hosts discuss the
economics in a way that’s targetted for people who don’t know all the lingo.

Culture and Curiosities

Now one of my favourites. You never know what to expect with this show because the
enigmatic host, Roman Mars, always finds something interesting that you likely have no idea about.
Roman started a group called Radiotopia which is a collective of like minded artists to create
exceptional podcasts.

Favourites (all of them):

Thomassons – I dare you to listen to this episode and not look for Thomassons wherever you go!

The Straight Line is a Godless Line – Given that I was in Vienna and saw the Hundertwasserhaus, it
was very interesting to hear more about the architect. I love the fact that people like him exist, though I may not
want to completely follow his lead.

Clean Trains – There are so many applications to the lesson of this episode. Frequent and consistent
feedback is necessary to promote any change.

One of the pioneers in story-telling podcasts. I’ve been away from it for a while and have re-subscribed as I’ve been
missing the excellent stories.

Favourites:

Emergence – This episode is from 2007 and it still comes up as one
of the more influencial podcast episodes I’ve listened to. I’m a control freak and find the concept of emergence hard
to understand. A top-down controller is easier for me to understand. This episode reminds me to rethink how things
ought to be and be more flexible.

An exceptional podcast hosted by two charismatic people. Normally I find tangents in podcasts to be distracting, but for
some reason these two often make it worthwhile. They cover a myriad of topics and they make the most mundane seem
fascinating. There are many excellent episodes but the following ones really stood out for me.

Favourites:

The two part series (episode 1episode 2) is a wonderful explanation of the origins of fairy tales
and how dark the originally were. The Juniper Tree one is quite horrifying.

Another two part series one male puberty and female puberty discusses the awkward
phase of life that we all had with great clarity.

Music

It’s likely that I’m a bit biased, but this is where I discover new music. I worked
there from 2005-2009 during the rise of the podcast. I can attest to the quality of the curation of the content coming
from the folks at Radio 3. The superfeed subscribes you to all the different podcasts published by Radio 3, though I
don’t think there are as many shows as there used to be.

This show satifies my curiosity about how a song gets made. It also makes me
appreciate songs that I wouldn’t have given a second listen. By listening to this show, you can disover new artists, and
you’ll learn how to listen to music and grow appreciation for the more subtle elements of song composition.

Summary

There are a lot of podcasts here and I’m constantly re-evaluating which ones should remain. Finding the balance of time
and value is hard to figure out. Currently I’m unemployed making it a lot easier to consume this much content. I also
listen to tech specific podcasts when I’m spending some time in that technology. A good example of that would be the
ruby rogues podcast. Or, I may take a look at HanselMinutes to see if something
interesting has come up.

To subscribe to all the same podcasts that I do, import this OPML file into your favourite podcast
listening software.

Unsubcribed

After a while I find myself changing my podcast listening tastes. Rather than delete them from this post, I’ll list
them here and provide some context as to why I don’t listen to them anymore.

Getting into the startup world is not something I’m terribly interested in, but I am critical
about the tech community, especially startups. This show helps me better understand the world of startups so I can
better understand the mechanics of startups. Over time this podcast has become to irritate me. The Valley speak gets to
you after a while (count how many questions are answered with an excited “Absolutely!”). I stopped listen to this
because I realized that I simply did not care about the startup world. Listening to this podcast started to depress me.

Favourites:

Everything You Need to Know About Amazon – Explanation of how Amazon re-invests all of its profits to avoid
opportunity costs is a novel concept. Not sure why investors are ok with it. Makes me more curious about what Amazon
will be doing 20-30 years from now.

Creating New Silicon Valleys – When something becomes trendy, people always want to figure out how
to replicate it. This episode explains how cultures are emergent, not created. Common sense it would seem, but that
doesn’t seem to really stop people. I feel the same around the topic of DevOps.

A podcast about a podcast startup. It mixes so many of my favourite things into one show.
Fantastic storytelling about a medium I’m passionate about and a domain that I want to learn more of. What connects
me to the show is that Alex Blumberg just wants to work on something he’s passionate about, but has to wade through all
sorts of concerns completely separate from what he really wants to do, because that’s business. Though this podcast
didn’t depress me like the a16z podcast did, I found the material getting pretty old. It was starting to repeat many of
the lessons from the StackOverflow Podcast (from 2008). Also, more North American podcast content isn’t
something I really want more of.

Favourites:

Startups are Risky Business – This gave me insight around the different VC models. I used to think
that they are all looking for the 100x payoff. I need to learn more about the more modest investments out there.
Sometimes you can invest in something simply because you want it to exist.

Not quite a technical podcast, but it shares stories from the software development world. I became a fan of
Ben Orenstein when I saw him do a play-by-play screencast. He strikes me as someone I would enjoy
working with. I’m weaning myself off of tech podcasts so this had to be removed.

Co-started by an old on-line friend of mine, Youssuf Elkalay.
I like the conversational style of this show as a way to keep me in the loop in the world of DevOps.
Removed because I’m trying to stay away from technical podcasts.

This one is fairly new and I’ve already become a fan. Chris Hunt
delivers his show in a charming style. He discusses being healthy, and what’s interesting in the software world. All to
the tune of a catchy theme song. Now I just need to get into the habit of doing the workout of the week. Removed for now
because of its technical base.

Episodes are themed around TED talks of similar topics. It blends interviews with the speakers along with their talks.
I find this more rich than the talk on its own.

Favourites:

The Violence Within Us – Sort of a scary episode, but it helps me understand that life is always in a
delicate balance. We’ll never live in a world where everyone is good. I tend to be utopian in my thinking and this
provides a good dose of reality.

What is Original – The thought of being unique and interesting is something everyone craves, but in the
end most of things are derivitive. This episode is good to pair with the 99% Invisible episode:
Duplitecture.

Identities – The next few generations of humans are going to have a much different concept about their
identity. We are more global and cross-cultural than ever before.

Getting into the spiritual side a bit. This show talks about culture and religion with an
open mind. The show reminds me to appreciate the differences between all of us on this rock. I used to listen to this
show all the time when I lived in Canada. I just recently subscribed to the podcast.

Favourites:

Being Alone – The 2nd portion with Nikki Giovanni is so delightful. It’s a candid conversation that
has so many quotable verses. I was walking the streets of Bangalore while listening to it and I had a huge smile on my
face the whole time.

The health care system is usually a bit of a black box and this show provides some visibility into how things work. Like
tapestry, this was a show I used to listen to all the time when I lived in Canada. Recently subscribed to feel that
connection back to where I came from.

Favourites:

Slow Code – A conversation about health care professionals
minimaly applying “Code Blue” protocols when they know the patient won’t survive or will survive at a considerable
cost. This episode made me remember that my job is pretty much pointless and to think about the people that do real
honest work out there.

A show that does a good job of covering both sides around global trends or analysing specific environments. I find this
show a bit deeper than something like Freakanomics or Planet Money.

Favourites:

Tax Transparency – Norway’s Model – Personally, I’ve become fascinated with transparent systems. I like
the idea of everyone knowing what each other makes because it provides the knowledge required to make better
decisions. This episode provides a look into why this was imposed in Norway’s past and some of the complexities that
have resulted in a more modern era.

A show about curious events. They did a neat thing where they perform a lateral thinking puzzle with each episode. It
reminds me that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and to always be curious about what is laid out in front of
you. I’ve only listened to a few episodes so I don’t have any favourites to list at the moment in time.

Most of the time I dislike drawn out conversational style podcasts but this one I enjoy listening to while doing tasks
(and I don’t mind not absorbing the contents of the episode). The hosts are: CGP Grey, who entertains me with
his affinity for comfort and observing the world from a far. Often I find myself aligned with his views and enjoy his
Youtube Channel immensely. The other host is Brady Haran who is energetic and curious. I
enjoy is enthusiasm around travel. I would love to have beer with these two which I know Grey would despise the idea and
Brady would love it. Their contrasting personalities and mutual respect for each other is why I’ll stick with this
podcast even though the episodes are too long by my listening standards.

This show takes a deeper look around statistics. It does the deeper critical view so you don’t have to. Listening to
this makes me trust reports even less. Spin is such a problem and how information is presented requires a lot of effort
to reveal a non-biased presentation.

Provides a focus on what makes a business successful. It’s a domain that I don’t really have a clue. I find myself
wanting to be closer to the business in the work I do day to day so this has been good at introducing me to what
executives think about.

Favourites:

Data Privacy – As someone on the sidelines watching the privacy debates from a technologist, it’s
important to learn how these topics are perceived from a business owner level.

Life After a Blockbuster – The story about Angry Birds was fascinating. It reveals how often
the success we put on a pedestal comes from consistent tenanicity.

Politics and World News

For once it’s nice to listen to something that isn’t about US politics. I started listening to economic podcasts to
understand more of the world around me. Now it’s pointing me in the direction of politics. This show is interesting to
hear about how ideas and policies gets introduced to society. They tackle some difficult issues as well which makes it a
bit heavier than some of the other lighter podcasts I have listed here.

Favourites:

The End of Free – I’ve been incorporating ad blocking daily for over a decade. It was fascinating to
hear how it’s hit a point where this practice is getting attention. Brands just want to engage with you! Why are we
being so mean to them!

Free Speech – This is the first for a 4 part series. It asks the questions around the trade offs of
free speech. I find myself conflicted and tripping over my own thoughts on what should be allowed. Learning the types
of nullifiers to free speech I found interesting too.

A member of the Radiotopia collective. Just started getting into this podcast recently.
I’m already becoming a huge fan!

Favourites:

Paying For It – This is part of a series called
“Dislike Club” which is focusing on the Internet. This episode calls to attention the problems happening with todays
monetization of the web through advertising. It sums up so many of the thoughts I’ve had about technology recently.

Sometimes hit or miss. Strives to be entertaining more than educational
sometimes, but overall the content is quite good. I identify a bit with Steve Levitt as he’s more of an
intrespective quiet person.

Favourites:

Regulate This! – As a user of services like Uber and Airbnb, it’s interesting to hear the issues that
these services raise. I find myself leaning towards the side of less regulation, but I still can’t figure out where
the balance is. The term “sharing economy” also drives me nuts, because sharing implies no charge to me. These are
just peer-to-peer market places enabled by technology.

Fitness Apartheid – An excellent example of how too little thought around a problem can lead to
bad consequences. It brings the concerns of both sides together and makes the listener understand that nothing is ever
as simple as you think it ought to be.

Short and to the point episodes that focus on very specific topics or issues. I
like this show because the pieces are bite-sized and frequently released. I find myself listening to this show when I
have to wait 15 minutes before something.

A new one that I just got into. It’s a bit more candid than EconTalk and more accessible. The guests are of the same
caliber and sometimes the Q&A at the end can add interesting tidbits that may not neccessarily come up during an
interview.

Favourites:

Jeffrey Sachs – I’ve only listened to a few and they are all excellent but this one stands out because I
found Jeffrey Sachs inspires me a little bit. Instead of shrugging his shoulders and pointing out how all the terrible
things in the world can be explained by value functions and rational behaviour, he uses that knowledge to learn how to
tweak these systems. He’s an interesting balance of idealist and a realist and I find that refreshing compared to
other economic speakers I’ve listened to.

I learned about Linette Lopez from the Slate Money podcast and really liked her style. She’s punchy
and tells it like it is. Hard Pass is a good low-dose entertaining podcast about the business and
econmics news of the day. The episodes are so short that it’s easy to digest any time.

Over the last year I’ve been interested in those that pursue Financial Independence / Early Retirement (known as FIRE
for short). This podcast is a regular dose of inspiration on my own pursuit of getting out of the rat race.

Favourites:

JL Collins Simple Path to Wealth – The simplicity and logic was enough for me to go out and buy his
book. I’m following the steps mentioned here for the last year and it’s been pretty positive so far. I like the simple
steps involved and I like the removal of the pressure that I need to be rediculously smart to make money from the
market.

Enjoying this podcast makes me feel quite odd. It’s a branding exercise by Paul and Rich’s company, but I’m able to see
past that and enjoy the dialogue of this show. I feel connected with Paul Ford as he brings out the
computer nostalgia non-stop. It’s a nice light-weight podcast that’s nice for the gym or listening to before going to
sleep.

Favourites:

Craig Mod on Great Design and Long Journeys (part 1, part 2) – I really enjoyed hearing
the chill zen thoughts from Craig compared to the NYC startup fast life of Rich and Paul. I got the sense that there’s
a lot I can learn from Craig.

Clover Newsletter – Want to get some some insight to how the younger generation rediscovers
old mediums and finds them useful for their cause? This episode is great for that.
I was really impressed at how wise beyond their years Liza Darwin
and Casey Lewis talk about their newsletter business. More interesting for me is to hear about a
demographic (teenage girls) that is so often not spoken about in tech circles.

A topic that I’ve been loving lately is learning how our brains work. Not at the micro level, but at the macro level.
What makes us make all the silly decisions that we make. How do we subtly use this knowledge to manipulate people for
good and bad. Whenever you find yourself asking the question “why would anyone behave this way?”, listen to this show
and it’ll shed some light on us crazy humans.

Favourites:

Grit – I found myself nodding at many of the points in this episode. It highlights how expertise requires
spending a large portion of your time performing deliberate practice. It also looks at why people love people that
show mastery in something but disregard the massive dedication these people spent on becoming a master.

AirBnB While Black – As a western white male, the easiness of my life is often not very obvious,
that is until you hear the stories of others. I have a feeling that the Internet is exposing our unconscious biases
more frequently while at the same time providing people with techniques to overcome these hurdles.

Each episode starts with a clue as to what the topic is going to be, and the hosts try to figure it out. They often have
great dialogues about the words and are well researched in trying to pinpoint the origin of term. They have a good sense
of humour too.

Favourties:

Language Positivity Bias – This episode made me laugh out loud while grocery shopping. They
dive into the lyrics of Slayer and it’s really a priceless moment.

Malcolm Gladwell is exceptional at cherry picking great stories to make his point. In this podcast he brings forward
stories to make you think differently about past events. I really enjoyed this show as it reminds me of how delusional
the human mind can be. At only 10 episodes it’s something I believe is worth listening to a second time.

Favourites:

The Big Man Can’t Shoot – An excellent showcase about how we humans don’t behave in ways to
maximize specific outcomes even when we know how to do it. Using the example of professional basketball, Malcolm
explores why humans don’t choose to do things that would put us to the top.

Blame Game – Can a collective of people trully be mass delusional? Hearing how a root cause analysis can
completely break down is bizarre to hear.

An excellent history of the world in small bite sized chunks. The format gives you a really good perspective of how
long civilization takes to change. I can only imagine how much time it took to determine which objects to use
from the last century. While listening to this I realized how much bias I have around change being technical.

As someone who had spent many years consulting around the benefits of CI and implementing build and release strategies,
I was interested in how the minutiae would be brought up in a book.

The book begins by going through the creation and configuration of a similar build process for 3 specific tech stacks:
Java, .Net, and Ruby. At first it feels rather repetitive but the repetition actually helps reinforce the importance of
consistency. With all tech stacks, the procedure is pretty much the same: Checkout, Build, Test, Package, Deploy, Run
UI Tests. This pattern really stands out after going through chapters 4, 5 and 6 and builds up a foundation for the
reader so that the rest of the material makes sense.

After setting the stage with these build configurations, he then dives into content that’s a bit more TeamCity
specific. This area was much more interesting to me as I’m already experienced with build and release concepts, but it
was nice to see TeamCity specific features explained in a little bit more depth.

One piece that felt a little out of place was the topic on Continuous Delivery. It’s really hard to introduce a concept
that has a massive book dedicated to the subject. Not sure if its inclusion will help out the beginner that this book
appears to be targeting.

What I enjoyed the most was raising operational concerns around running a CI server system. It was likely
deliberately left out, but I would have liked to see a mention of automated configuration management. There’s something
incredibly powerful around automation around your automation.

It became clear to me that this book is meant for the absolute beginner. Manoj hints at better ways of implementing
his example configurations (eg: using wrapper scripts over the built in runners) but doesn’t distract the reader
with these possibly subjective tangents. I would recommend this book if you’ve never worked with any CI tool and like
to have a guidebook as you try and set it up yourself. Despite being over 250 pages, the book is packed with
screenshots so that it’s absolutely clear and won’t take too long to go through the whole book. If you’re already
experienced with some tools the principles around CI and good build hygiene, this book is useful to skim to see what’s
new with TeamCity and some context of the usage of TeamCity specific features.

Ukraine

The next leg of the journey was a long slog from Vienna to L’viv. I took a noon train to Budapest and had to pass
some time there for a little while. From Budapest it was an overnight journey with many frequent stops in the
middle of the night for immigration and customs. If you’ve ever played Papers, Please, it felt like that. Ukraine
isn’t part of the Schengen agreement so you can’t just cross the border without a documents check. Around a few
hours from L’viv the attendant asks me about my purpose in Ukraine. She then points at my “ringless” ring finger and
smiles. I knew of the Russian/Ukrainian bride thing, but found it crazy that her first guess was for that purpose.
I thought it was a hyped up, but after watching a few youtube documentaries about it, I learned
it’s sadly alive and well.

Even with such a long journey the train pretty much arrived on time within a couple minutes. When I exited the train I
immediately could recognize my cousin Lilia. She ran up to me and gave me a proper family style hug. Looks like I’m
home! We took a bus to her home in the Northern part of the city. I was introduced to her roommate,
Vitalik. He and I got along really well. He’s a web designer and looks to have a knack for it!
Lilia had to go back to work so I unpacked and made myself at home. Later that evening Lilia’s sister, Natalia, arrived
by train from Ternopil. She had a huge package of food from her parents and we all enjoyed a feast as I
did my best to tell the story of myself and the Myц family Canadian history.

L’viv

I felt immediately comfortable in L’viv. As Lilia was at work, Vitalik and Natalia guided me around the city. Here
are some of the noteworthy places we checked out:

High Castle – On my first day in L’viv I was antsy to go out and explore. I never feel comfortable
in a location until I spend at least a whole day walking around exploring and knowing my surroundings. Natalia likes
to sleep in (she’s going to kill me), so instead of waiting for her to wake up, I decide to explore L’viv on my own.
The high castle name is more of a memory as the castle isn’t there anymore. Getting to the top of the hill was
good exercise and rewarded me with a beautiful 360 degree view of the city.

Dim Legend (House of Legend) – There are a collection of restaurants owned by a company that’s doing some interesting
setups. Dim Legend has a room for every story (or a story for every room). The restaurant takes
the entire building and you can go up to the roof top where there’s patio with a car, and a chimney with a ladder so
that you can climb to the top. There’s something refreshing about being in a country that doesn’t have the same
restrictive safety regulations of most western countries.

Rynok Square – Like most Eastern European cities, L’viv has a beautiful (albeit touristy) city
square. You’ll find the “floating” statue people and dudes making giant bubbles. Overall though, the atmosphere is
quaint and relaxing. Ukrainian culture is inviting so it’s pretty hard to feel like you’re too far out of place.
This is probably where I spent the most time as all the coffee shops and restaurants are all near this location.

Lviv chocolate – One of the most unique experiences I had in L’viv was drinking melted chocolate
flavoured with a whole whack load of chili powder! This place was not good for any thought about losing weight. Not
sure how everyone here stays so fit! At least I was getting a lot of walking in, but not sure if it’s enough for
all the sweets I’ve been having.

Lviv brewery – On my own I stopped by the brewpub to sample a few of their beers. I was really
intrigued by the style of beer they make there. In general, I found Ukrainian beer sweeter than most beers I’ve
had around the world. I visited the brewery a second time with Natalia and Vitalik. We took a brewery tour but
it was done in Ukrainian. I’ve never heard Ukrainian spoken so fast, but it was pretty comprehensive. She started
the tour talking about the origins of beer in Egypt.

Try Mitly (3 Brooms) – My cousins are huge Harry Potter fans and they said that there’s a place to have
butter beer in L’viv! A lot of places were kitschy but that didn’t bother me in this environment. I found them a lot
of fun. It could be that I felt like I was in an environment where people aren’t as judgemental about such kinds
of establishments.

Gas lamp – Owned by the same person as Dim Legend, this restaurant had a unique feel for every floor
and was a fun environment to take some time and relax in.

Lviv coffee manufacture – L’viv is the coffee capital of Ukraine. Normally tea is the hot beverage
choice, but here coffee rules. A proper L’viv coffee is hot water mixed with the coffee grounds without a filter.
You wait a few minutes and the grounds settle to the bottom and you’re left with a rich, flavourful cup of coffee.
The best part is that you don’t need any fancy expensive equipment to make it! It’s really the quality of the beans
that matter.

Lychakiv Cemetery – I wanted to go somewhere outside the center and old gothic cemeteries seem to appeal
to me for some reason. The day that I visited Lychakiv Cemetery was sunny and warm. The whole area is like a maze and
it was nice to wander around witnessing the beautiful scenery.

L’viv is a city rich in culture, architecture, and friendly people. It’s accessible with its 120 year old tram
system, but remember to punch your ticket yourself (pictures to the left) and has all the things you need as a traveler.
The city is sort of a dream land for me. It has excellent beer, chocolate, coffee, books, and food. The people are
friendly and accomodating, I can’t wait to be back!

Ternopil

For the weekend, Lillia had planned a trip to Ternopil to visit her parents and other relatives. Apparently they don’t
get many foreigners on the train and the attendant on the train made an effort to ask if I wanted tea or coffee in
English. He sort of chuckled and so did my cousins, not sure why. We took a bus from the train station to the outer area of Ternopil
where Lilias’s parents live. It was a classic pre 90’s looking apartment block. The door opens to their apartment and
I’m welcomed with a feast on the table! Lilia’s parents didn’t speak much English so poor Lilia had to spend a lot of
time translating (she eventually could tell me whole life story without me having to say a word). The meal started with
a shot of vodka. When Ivan offered me another, I replied “tak, bud laska!” (translation: yes, please!). That moment
signified me as an authentic family member.

First, I need to digress and talk about Lilia and Natalia’s parents, Ivan and Mariia. They are the sweetest couple and
so generous. I loved how they didn’t let the language barrier prevent us from getting to know each other. One of my
favourite moments was sitting with Ivan as he showed me pictures and we had a conversation. Lilia was busy packing
for the trip back and after she was done she asked what the heck we could possibly talk about. I’m not quite sure
myself, but we laughed a lot and didn’t let language stop us from at least trying to communicate. We even enjoyed
watching the Belgian GP (and what an awesome race!) with some Ukrainian craft beers. One day I hope to learn more
Ukrainian so we can communicate even more the next time we meet.

Mariia could easily be mistaken as a sister of her daughters. She’s actually my
cousin (Lilia and Natalia are my 2nd cousins 1st removed) and the family bond was definitely felt. She’s also an
amazing cook! The meals included home made: cabbage rolls, varenyky (perogies), shkvarky (pork rind), sour cream, borscht, milk, and juice.
I’m pretty sure I gained 5 kilos over those few days.

The next day was spent driving to Velyki Birky, a village outside of Ternopil. Our first stop was at Mariia’s parents (Hanna and
Fedoz). First we stopped by a house which was a family run brewery (business card pictured). One of the sons of the owner was there and he
happily (in excellent English) explained the whole operation. The beer was fresh, un-pasterized, un-filtered, and
very tasty. We then arrived and had a big family lunch (with more shots of vodka). Hanna is my dad’s cousin as she
is the daughter of Eve Myц who is the sister of Petro Myц, my dad’s father. The meal was of course fantastic and I
did my best to update them on my family back in Canada. During the afternoon, Lilia, Natalia, and I walked over to
where Hanna’s other children live. Lilia gave her best rendition of my life story and we had fun playing more Q&A
with more of my family. One of the big questions was on how Canada was receiving the news about the events going
on in Ukraine. Unfortunately I couldn’t quite adequatley answer the question but from a generalized perspective I
could say that the West has been pretty weak in it’s response.

In the evening I went out with the girls to meet up with some of their friends. It was fun introducing them to some
of the games I played at TWU (eg: numbers game, and one-up one-down). The next day was a holiday for independence day
so we went walking around the city for a bit. The city had some very pretty areas and some interesting looking playgrounds.
After our walk we went to the train station (pic: don’t we look like an intimidating group?).

Back to L’viv

After an amazing weekend we headed back to L’viv. Lilia’s roommate was returning so I had find a place of my own
to for a few days. I wasn’t prepared for how much I would miss being in the same place as my cousins and Vitalik (I’m
considering him family). I did feel some sense of relief to give Lilia some time without having to worry
about entertaining me and it gave me a chance to practice my Ukrainian all on my own. The few days I spent on my
own was focused on hanging out in coffee shops and working on a browser plugin. I realized there’s a reason why
people smiled when I asked for the wifi password when I hung out at a venue. Trying to be Ukrainian I would say
“Internet bud laska”. This is the equivalent of ordering the Internet off of a menu. My cousins got a good laugh
from this, and apparently so did all the wait staff I said this to.

Anyways, over a couple days I got the the basic functionality of a plugin working called BlockWorthy.
It scrubs links to viral websites and issues you a warning if you happen to go to one of those websites. It felt good
to be writing some code and exploring some ideas.

Summary

Leaving Ukraine I thought about the bond of family. I had been watching Game of Thrones and seeing how important
bloodlines are in that show probably had some affect on me. I was really touched that my cousins would openly accept
me into their home and all because we share common ancestry (my great grandfater, their great great grandfather).
I didn’t even know who were my cousins were until my aunt
in Biggar informed me there are relatives in Ukraine who would love to meet me. The thought about the subconscious
bond with family made me think about why we have countries and lines on maps. It’s like a higher level view of the
bond. Patriotism is like a larger version of nepotism. I can’t help connect more easily with someone from Canada than
I would USA. My bond with my cousins exists because of who my parents are. My ability to nearly walk into any country
is simply because of the country I was born in.

What I’m really trying to say is that I’m so freaking lucky to be born into an awesome family and country. Because
of these uncontrollable events (on my part), I’ve been afforded so many luxuries.